More than a hundred women sprung a lightning rally in front of the Malacanang Presidential Palace, managing to deliver a pointed message to the occupant before tussling with the Presidential Security Group that was caught unawares. On the day before the world observes the International Women’s Day, the GABRIELA Women’s Alliance blasted at President Aquino’s repeated surrender of the country’s patrimony and sovereignty to foreign powers.

“The Aquino administration’s three-year rule has a track record fully decked with his grovelling before foreign interests that compromised or severely damaged the welfare of the nation and people,” said Joms Salvador, Secretary General of GABRIELA.

Salvador cited the constant violations by the United States military of Philippine laws, notably the destructive intrusion into the Tubbataha reef, and the most recent stonewalling of the Sultanate of Sulu’s efforts to reclaim Sabah from Malaysia. “Aquino has become the shameless spokesperson for foreign governments. Instead of acting like the President of the Philippines, Aquino has become the defender and ambassador that they can depend on to defend and justify their rape and plunder of our natural resources, and even dispose Filipino citizens to their mercy.”

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GABRIELA stated that the Aquino government’s pro-foreigner policies govern its diplomatic protocols even when lives of our abused women are in danger. “GABRIELA still cannot forget how Malacanang abandoned the Filipina rape victim Pamela and set free her Panamanian rapist last year. This is on top of the long list of women contract workers and trafficked women who are abused or met their deaths with nary any diplomatic effort from Aquino’s foreign affairs agencies exerted to save them.”

“As long as the President treats issues of Philippine patrimony and sovereignty in a thoughtless manner, our Motherland is like a woman raped incessantly by foreigners,” Salvador added.

On March 8, International Women’s Day, GABRIELA pledges to lead thousands of women marching into the streets to express their growing revulsion at the anti-Filipino at pro-foreign policies of the Aquino administration. “On Women’s Day women are reminding Aquino that Malacanang has no place for any traitor to the people.”